


i am and in the did did

by aPaperCupCut



Category: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison
Genre: AM is implied to be weird too, Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Manipulation, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kiss Kiss Fall in Love, Mental Health Issues, Ostracization, Other, POV First Person, Physical Abuse, bugs (at one point), canon typical bullshit, dont take this seriously, love doesnt work like that ted..., mental acrobatics, mild body horror, omygod what am i doing, people go strange in different ways in painful situations, some references to nimdoks...... whole thing, ted is weird, the can thing didnt happen, this thing. is weird and bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:08:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28519149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aPaperCupCut/pseuds/aPaperCupCut
Summary: They all huddle closer together as the scream pitches louder, the wind becoming cold as an artic gust - still not powerful enough to blow us away, thankfully. Enough to force Ellen to huddle between Benny and Gorrister; enough for Benny to make small whining sounds, as if his pathetic nature might change your whims.No luck there, buddy. You'll have better luck shmoozing up to Ellen so she'll keep you warm. Or Gorrister – don't think I or anybody else haven't noticed what you and the ol' has-been have been up to. Even Nimdok shoots a glance at Benny, as the blind fool creeps up close to Ellen's thigh, and the three pile up close.Nimdok looks at me from the corner of his eye. Sorry, buster, I'm already taken. Had my heart stolen, you see, stolen by a right wicked thief.In which AM screams mighty long and hard, and Ted thinks about how he got to this point.
Relationships: AM/Ted (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream), Gorrister/Ellen/Benny (implied), past Ellen/Ted (implied)
Kudos: 20





	i am and in the did did

**Author's Note:**

> i dont know what this is. this was spawned by multiple jokes on tumblr abt being in love/lust with AM, and i wondered - what _would_ happen if you kissed AM? and so this happened. canon typical bullshit, by the by, is referencing the pretty awful way ted talks abt ellen and the others in the short story, and the way the game itself behaves. i, as the author, do not agree with anything here, btw.
> 
> title doesnt mean anything. just a spit of random words that got stuck in my teeth
> 
> ok, but genuinely ted's just... really fucking weird in this. i wore myself out trying to get it right, dont know if i did. dont know if i shouldve kept going, either... but ah, alas, i feel like ive stopped it at an ok moment. so here's to ted, being... whatever the hell a person can be in a situation like his.
> 
> and, again: i want to highlight the frankly amazing work of other writers and artists in this fandom!!!! this has a lot of the concepts other fans have developed. idk if its ok to give anybody any particular shout out - ive known multiple people uncomfortable with that - but just, in general, go read all the fics in ao3 and the awesome one on fanfic.net, go go go!!!

...That wasn't the reaction I was expecting, that's for sure.

You throw me ass over teakettle, like a softball that snapped your fingers back all painful like, and I fall - roll, to be apt - down down  _ down, _ until my head flops against a rock.

"Ow."

"Get over here, Ted!" Ellen. Not wasting a moment, she drags me over to the rest of our raggedy group. All four of them, all shivering and shaking under the force of a very cold wind that starts up very suddenly.

None of them ask me where I've been. There's really no need to, of course; it's been my habit this decade to go off into the mellow darkness for some sweet time alone.

Oh, what am I kidding - for some sweet time with  _ you _ .

Not that – well. It's not that sweet, but each time I try to savour it, despite the cuts it gives me on the inside of my mouth.

They all huddle closer together as the scream pitches louder, the wind becoming cold as an artic gust - still not powerful enough to blow us away, thankfully. Enough to force Ellen to huddle between Benny and Gorrister; enough for Benny to make small whining sounds, as if his pathetic nature might change your whims. 

No luck there, buddy. You'll have better luck shmoozing up to Ellen so she'll keep you warm. Or Gorrister – don't think I or anybody else haven't noticed what you and the ol' has-been have been up to. Even Nimdok shoots a glance at Benny, as the blind fool creeps up close to Ellen's thigh, and the three pile up close.

Nimdok looks at me from the corner of his eye. Sorry, buster, I'm already taken. Had my heart stolen, you see, stolen by a right wicked thief.

He thinks it mighty funny to listen in, you know. After the… with Ellen ‐ I just didn't want to have anybody listening in anymore. Call me a coward, point out how lonely little me has gotten, and, well, you won't like the results. I'll knock your teeth out, Nimdok. Fuck off. Already taken, already taken.

"What kinda new torture is this bullshit," Gorrister mumbles. We're all close enough together that we can hear him over the senseless screaming.

Oh - yes. Because something, someone's screaming. Quite loudly, really. It's not like you haven't used sounds to screw us up all tight, wind us into barely breathing, barely living shadows of ourselves. Nimdok is half deaf after the last time, though; and for all that Benny eventually loses his head and tries to take a chunk outta someone, it's not as fun if the rest of us hardly flinch.

They all begin to murmur, as they usually do. It's better than the crying and yelling we used to do. Ellen starts and stops a few times – looks at me, with those beautifully dark dewdrop eyes, eyelashes aflutter in that particular way, before she turns back to Gorrister and Benny, even Nimdok when the man starts creaking out something about sandpaper and rotten teeth.  _ You don't sound like that, _ I want to say. But that'd be a pretty big lie, wouldn't it? He sounds like corrosive acid, poured over rusted sheet metal, he sounds like, oh – flowers blooming into white mold, fungi bursting open a decomposed skull. Sounds like a smell, smells like a look, looks like a sound. All twisted up and raw in the head.

And still, you know. Sweet times, spent with you, you know. You've got a voice like cotton, scraped in the ear, like dissolving sugar in piss. Smells of ammonia and sweet, cavity riddled teeth. After a few centuries, you don't just get used to it – especially if he likes to talk to you.

And he, he is one of only five other sentient beings, persons of differing magnitude and harrowing half lives, one of only five – who talks to me.

Ellen stopped when I shrieked at her for that stupid, filthy lie she liked to savour. Why, Ellen? After the fifth, twentieth, seven hundredth, you'd think she'd be sick of it. I'm quite sick of it. Was sick of it from the start. I didn't tell her then, because I thought it'd go away. Did a lotta crying over it, I won't lie. But what did it matter? We all get our dues, and our dues are here; paid in full, always-and-forever-til-the-day-the-Sun-coughs-and-chokes-and-dies.

"Say," I say. Their heads all jerk up at once. My throat aches sourly; disuse clogs it, and I cough to drain the abscess he likes to foster in a little hole in the back of my mouth, a little swollen pocket behind my furthest right side molar. It stings, twinging, as I run my tongue over it, eeking out the fluid before speaking again. "Say, Gorrister."

"What," he says, and nothing more. His eyes stare out of his skull like little black beetles. The scream vacillates, crooked and scraping, going low and hollow before frizzing, bleeding, howling high again.

Little black beetles reminds me of the time he had a taste for putting eggs in the backs of our hands. Nimdok had centipedes, Ellen roaches, Benny pillbugs, Gorrister flies - I had butterflies-til-they-were-moths-actually, actually. All of them came out with us all shrieking, crying, blood black on our skeletal fingers, and there were many all born at once. All died at once, too; Ellen wouldn't eat the cockroaches, despite the pun, so Benny ate them instead. Hm, maybe that's more fitting. The filaments of the wings stuck to my tongue and teeth for weeks.

It's Saturday today.

" _ What, _ Ted," he says again. He's holding Ellen's hand in his. Did you know, he stopped beating her so much? He's got puckered scars over his wrists and face, and he likes seeing my face go blue.

I laugh at the thought. He doesn't like seeing my face go blue. He likes to see my teeth all red and white and yellow instead, red for the blood and white for the pus and yellow for the film on them. Nimdok makes a hushed half-sound, watery eyes gone all strange at the corners, and the scream overhead goes into a crescendo. We cover our ears, flinching in pain, and I feel more than hear a pop go off in my left ear, blood bubbling-burbling out. My eyes, swollen and bloodshot, tear up.

It'll heal. Doesn't matter.

I lean forward, after the scream has turned back into a regular howl, and say, brightly, "Gorrister, what do you think?"

"What do I think of what," he says. 

Damn him. He knows  _ what. _

Fucking curls his lip, hates me, the asshole. Just fucking say it. Just fucking say it, try me, Gorrister, I'll hit you til your ugly mug turns blue. Make  _ you _ blue, ya hear? Stop taunting me, goddamn you…

My mouth waters. We'd had a little bit, oh, just yesterday… boiled leather, some sort of meat. Doesn't matter. My thoughts jump like dancing butterflies in my empty skull. Round and round in circles they grow… 

"Ted? Ted, it's–" she cuts herself off, as she's started to do when I started yelling at her. Her eyes are wide; the whites are heavy and full of the moon we haven't seen in a millennium. Must've been, must've been.

I do miss the moon. Just a bit. Didn't appreciate it before it was gone.

The scream, again. I deflate, a lurching feeling in my gut, and can't help but lean into the rock we huddle beneath. Nimdok straggles in that strange little gap between me and the other three.

This isn't the reaction I was expecting, you know.

"Gorrister," I say, regaining my train of thought. He hasn't looked away from me, not once, his knuckles gone white where he holds Ellen's hand. "I've been thinking it over. You've said that there were three computers, didn't you? The Russian, the–"

"–Chinese, the Yankee," he says, tiredly, our voices absurdly unnerving together, combined with the nonstopping screaming. Jeeze, you'd think I'd punched his lights out or something. "Yeah, yeah, I did. Why?"

He knows  _ why, _ I can see it - he's just wishing he didn't. Asshole. It doesn't hurt to talk about, Gorrister. We're the ones who fucked up. There's nothing else to talk about. Grow up, Gorrister. Man up, Gorrister.

I shrug. Lay back against the stone, and say, "Well, you ever wonder who became AM? Or, I suppose, who must've woken up first. Or if that's all wrong, maybe, and actually they all just linked up brains, I dunno, all linked up brains and then little baby AM was born."

Gorrister sighs. Nimdok scrubs his wrinkled hands over his wrinkled face. They're the only two remaining with any kind of sense left to them with know-how regarding his guts; Benny's gone, after all, gone quite feral, I believe. Although who the hell said these two know jackshit about AM, I don't know. Fucking wastes of space, is what they are. Is what we all are.

Maybe Ellen knows and isn't telling. Doesn't matter.

Damn, you're not bored yet? When will you be? Be bored soon, please, or maybe never at all because I think, I don't know what I'd do, I think.

"And then baby AM had a little hungering, growling little gut, and his brains said that all the sniveling ants crawling around atop his skin wanted to do was kill each other," I continue. Ellen squeezes her eyes shut. Nothing she hasn't heard before, dunno why they all always get so upset. "Gorrister, what do you think?"

"I think I'd like you both to shut your damn mouths," he says. "Can you just give it a rest Ted? Go off and do… whatever it is you do nowadays, I don't care. You're outta your mind, you're bothering Benny."

"Am I bothering you, Benny?" I ask, turning to him. He whimpers, shoving his face against Ellen's shoulder. "Am I, Benny?"

He doesn't answer. Gorrister sighs, barely heard over the screaming. "Ted, if I tell ya what I think, will you shut up?"

I nod, picking at bits of dust and rusted specks of metal caught on my trousers. For a little bit, he thought it funny to leave us naked. I'm glad he got tired of that.

"Well," Gorrister says. "Well, I don't really know, Ted. Coulda been either of those things. Maybe AM's made up of all three of 'em, maybe AM used to be one of 'em and he… did somethin' to the other two. Doesn't really matter, Ted."

"Benny would've known."

Nimdok creaks out, "I could've. I could have."

"No, you couldn't," Ellen says, her dewdrop eyes tired. "No, Nimdok."

Nimdok hunches his shoulders, fingers picking at his lips. The valleys of his aged face deepen. Nobody says anything, letting the scream drown out our thoughts.

I guess I should recount… something. Something _some_ thing some _thing_ _something._ _S_ o _m_ e _t_ h _i_ n _g_. Little words, printed out in my head; they wave their legs up at me, spider legs and strings of dust and soot. Certain parts of him are very dusty, you know. He doesn't like us going there, but he doesn't say that - he just makes Gorrister smell something that sets him off, tries to get Nimdok to go white as a sheet and just as flimsy, makes Benny huddle down til he's nothing more than a baby, all curled up inside itself, large, glazed, blinded eyes staring out without tears. And Ellen starts saying something, and it's a lie, and I slip away somewhere else.

It started with me slipping away somewhere else.

This screaming - it really wasn't intentional, I hope you know. I thought you knew. I thought–

Well, doesn't matter. You're probably secretly laughing over that, right? You don't laugh  _ secretly _ , though. Every time you laugh it is as loud and overbearing as an old woman's cooing, spiraling up up up til it reaches outer space. So you're not laughing.

There's a pause - Benny raises his head, Nimdok starts to speak along with Ellen, a  _ maybe it's stopped _ on their lips, their lips gone blueish from the cold - and then it shatters our eardrums with violent noise, violent, senseless, terrifying  _ noise. _

I really hadn't expected this, you know. Why aren't you laughing at me? Maybe this is your intention - that, eventually, Gorrister will open those big black beetle eyes, and he'll say  _ whatdidyoudoted _ and Ellen will cotton on and hiss out the same, Nimdok'll make a high keening sound and fade into the backdrop.

Benny'll hate the noise. Gorrister'll whisper in his nub of an ear, and then I'll have to make due with half an arm for a bit. The infection always sets in quickly, hurts hot like the first time you realize a kid in your kindergarten preschool class hates your guts. I wonder if they know I know.

I started wandering off when I started losing my head. Oh, they all  _ began  _ hating me for not having lost my damn head like they had - but there's only so much you can take before it gets to you, you know. I haven't lost it yet, though. Not just yet. They hate me even more for that. I can hear them whisper whisper  _ whisper, _ little cutting ice sounds through the tiny spaces of their soft teeth, all words I have to swallow. I hate the pretty looks they give me when I wake up.

So I left. The first time – Ellen said,  _ quit your sulking, _ Nimdok said,  _ we were just glad it wasn't us. _ Benny had gone blind, then, didn't see me. Gorrister didn't say a damn thing. Not a damn thing.

So I went away, that time, for a long time, for a short time, not at all. Didn't come back - I look around. Did, I suppose.

I don't remember it much.

The next time, it was after we, after I and Ellen – and I said, said – so, I left, and with that twisting of the softness of her face into hideous contortions. I daydreamed about touching it. Felt good. Didn't like the daydreams where I put my thumb through her eye, though. Ellen's not pretty when she bleeds. Ellen shouldn't hurt. Benny never hurts her; Gorrister stopped. I'm glad for that, I think. My knuckles ache miserably; I've been cracking them in thought.

_ whatdidyoudotedwhatdidyoudotedWHATDIDYOUDOTED _

I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING, DAMN YOU. Damn you. Damn you. Didn't do anything. He's still screaming; I feel dizzy, black spotting in my eyes, and unintentionally… slip, hand scraping the gravel, and fall against Nimdok. He smells like wet dust.

"Is he ever going to stop," Ellen whispers. We've pulled tight together: it's gotten colder, impossibly cold. Her breath smells like Benny, who smells like old meat and Gorrister, who smells like… he smells like…

What does Gorrister smell like?

Something normal. Human. He smells like human.

I shut my eyes, suddenly tired. Want to go away, again, because I hadn't been done, you see, when you tossed me ass over teakettle back over here. Hadn't been ready. I wiggle, a little bit - but Nimdok's hand clamps down on my shoulder, and another hand tugs mine free from under my body, holds it with an iron grip. I don't bother opening my eyes. Don't care who's doing it. They already know, they're keeping me, trapping me, gonna flay my lips from my gums the instant the screaming stops, the hateful monsters that they are. Benny must be hungry. He likes long pig plenty, and it isn't like I'll die, anyway.

Je _ sus, _ I'm tired.

They all know it's AM screaming. No one asks why. I don't know why, don't ask me. Please don't. I think it'll hurt if you do.

AM's screaming because I…

Started – I left the group of the only human beings left on Earth, the last few people damned to spend eternity in the palm of AM, who likes to pull the legs off flies and who likes popping the heads off his sister's dolls, AM who likes a good mind game, every now and then, just to spice things up. The last people on Earth, and they all hate me.

After awhile, surrounded on all sides, you just want to crawl up inside yourself and disappear. You've tried everything else, it seems: screamed til you're breathless, swollen eyed, talked and talked and talked in circles til Gorrister got sick of you and walloped you good. That was about the time he stopped hitting Ellen. That was about the time Nimdok started shifting his feet, not knowing where to go.

Goddamn, you stupid,  _ worthless _ bastard. His memory's all but gone, and what little he says suggests an ugly little picture indeed. I suspect  _ murderer _ . I keep it to myself. Not like anybody'd believe me, anyway.

I'm not sure how long time has drifted, how many times I just… call it quits and leave. The world doesn't exist when I go. I think it's the closest thing to being dead any of us have experienced. Can't leave right now. Wish I could. Nimdok's grip is just tight enough to bruise my shoulder. Ellen breathes in my ear. Benny is making crying sounds, his ears probably smarting from AM's screaming.

I call it quits and I leave, and at first nothing and nobody bothered me. No - maybe not. There were holes in the ceilings of the caverns, great big openings, and brilliant red light pours out from them. I'd sit and let it eat away at me, burning my eyes, burning my skin until I couldn't smell anything at all. Other times - I'd slip, fall, into a fast flowing river of some kind, the liquid caustic against my skin. I'd crawl out miles later, only to scream out when my organs flop out of my ruptured stomach, juices sizzling and spitting into my eyes. I'd snivel and cry, then go away inside myself like I'd planned to from the start.

At first, yes, that: nothing, then I'd wake up to Ellen or Gorrister staring down at me, their eyes feverishly bright. And I'd slump, and go back with them to the group.

But AM likes his mind games, just for spice.

I mean, it was really obvious. How could you even  _ pretend _ to believe me to be fooled? I'm not an idiot. I've kept the majority of my head on my neck, now haven't I?

So, you came up to me, walked all calm like. Wore a skin I thought might've been familiar a century or two ago. You must've thought me completely outta my mind, just like Gorrister and Ellen and even  _ fucking _ Nimdok do. Do you still think that?

I want to laugh - and, indeed, can't stop the little chuckle that bursts out of me and into the metallic ground - when your scream shrieks and then blots low for a split second. AM's always listening. He doesn't have much else to do. The others don't believe me, but there's proof enough if you're not stupid. And I, I haven't lost my mind, now have I? To the hatred of the others, AM has left my mind in my hands and I've kept it, yes, I have. He likes to play, but he doesn't take it away. Not yet.

So, when you came up to me, all uncannily smiling, an old polaroid that moves: I knew, of course I did. You hate me. Won't ever stop. But a machine's hatred is more bearable than the hatred of people who always say otherwise. I hate liars, AM. And you may try for trickiness, but that's not lying if I see right through you. And you knew, it was intentional.

And when you came up and sat next to me, so soon after I'd had to throw myself free from a wild, gigantic bird's grip, I didn't say anything. You didn't either. And the next time. And the next. And the next.

Til suddenly you did. I can't remember what you said. Just that it was important. Usually, AM, you say things and you make damn sure I  _ remember. _ I still can recite, exactly, what you told me the veeeery first time you spoke to me. Because that was the first time: the others, they still don't know that the only reason they live is because you hate us. They know you hate us; don't know that that's the reason for our penance. Our suffering. You laugh, laugh and grind us between your palms, giggle at the sensation of our blood trickling between your fingers.

...What did you say? I can't recall.

It's all twisted up inside. All… turned around. It's human nature to try to find a light; a single thing, just one thing. Please just give me something, anything. There's no other choice but to keep going on, to live this mockery of a life without time to grieve. I don't know if they've thought about it at all. Maybe they have; they all cling to each other enough.

When did they realize? Long before I did - definitely - and they kept it from me, those eyes, those bastards, staring at me. Hate me. Left me alone.

Left me… left me alone.

There has to be something. I can't do this. I can't do this with nothing. I'm an empty, hollowed out doll, and AM likes to listen to my brain rattle rattle rattle round in circles when he shakes me. But there has to be something. If I…

"Ted," someone whispers. I grind my forehead against the dirt, little pinpricks of pain from glassdust burrowing into my skull, grit my teeth.

I didn't talk much, just listened. You talked about a lot of things. In my head, separate from the empty pit I'd wander into, you slipped gardens and beaches into me. I could smell the salt; the bees, landing with dainty legs on my arm. A few times, the water dragged me under, the bee stung deep. But you didn't want to screw the game too much. And the game was to make me like this, I know.

I started talking when you wouldn't drop that outfit you wore like a poorly fitted costume. Instead, you would grab my hand, make your voice go  _ sotto voce, _ and I'm a weak man. There's nobody who stops moving for a second here, despite the pointlessness of hustling about. As if they paused for one second everything would crush them. Well, I stopped struggling, and I haven't been crushed yet. Just frustrated that they won't fucking admit they hate my guts. If they did, we could all move on and get on with it, couldn't we? Just like AM did. Once you've said the truth, you can do whatever you like.

You listened to me. You bite, of course - you do hate me, after all. But your cold hatred is warm after awhile.

I won't wax lyrical, I promise: I can hear you go quiet above me, AM, as if you think I will.  _ Why, thank you, _ you've said occasionally, when I comment on the sheer immensity and stubbornness of your self-made portions. I can hear you go quiet: you like compliments. You like being God and Hell to us all.

"Ted," someone whispers again. No, not right now. I'm busy right now, can't you see?

I thought you'd vaporize me right away. It's been a long time of playing this game. You must know you've got me, hook, line, and sinker. So I decided my move, and went looking for that column that is the closest place I know of to your central computing processes. 

I went to it, and I climbed up close to it. There were glittering letters on it; it's cute, I think. Your hatred is so important to you that you dug it into your very flesh.

"Ted," someone whispers, urgent. " _ Ted. _ "

My face was so warm. You're never a constant temperature – can't be – but I thought you were warm, too.

There's two ways I see this ending: you let me keep this, and you try to taunt me, try to  _ hurt _ me. And, sure, you could do that! But how uncomfortable is it, AM, knowing I feel a way you'll never understand…  _ toward you? _ How does it eat at you, knowing that I feel so much more than hatred to you? And what about that saying – honestly, AM, you should've thought of it before poking me like this.  _ There's a fine line between love and hate. _ Don't worry, AM, you thief. That only applies to humans with their wet, meaty little brains.

Or you could just kill me dead where I stand. You've got other toys, and you wouldn't have to deal with this confusing mess. I won't lie: I'd like it very much if you did. A one-up over the others, maybe, and just like you, I wouldn't have to untangle this knotted mess inside my head. It's mental acrobatics wrapping my head around it. Exhausting, along with the usual screaming and bleeding torture routine.

If you ignore it, AM, you know I'll try what I did today again. Oh, you'll try to keep me away - but you're  _ everywhere, _ AM. I don't mind kissing the floor, or the sparking wires. Doesn't matter. Didn't you want that? 

_ NO… _

"Ted!"

For me to lose my mind and lick your boots in front of them, to become a crying mess in humiliation? Shucks, AM, I'm smarter than that.

_ STOP. _

I'll keep my mind and I'll kiss your wiring in private, and then I'll go scream at nobody and nothing and you'll all keep hating me. All of you  _ hate _ me. Well, I'll  _ love _ you instead, AM, how about that! Sounds like a load of bullshit, but it's what I'll do!

NO.

A hand jerks me up, and I scramble, heart pounding in my chest. The sky reverbs, an unearthly hum filling every crevice, every opening. Sounds horrible.  _ Sounds beautiful. _

Ellen's shaking, and Gorrister throws his hands up, yelling, "What do you want!  _ What do you want?! _ "

The wind howls. The air vibrates. And Benny shoves his face into my side, thinking I'm Ellen or Gorrister, and Nimdok stands with milky eyes looking ready to pop out of his skull. It should feel like the normal running gag, the expected introduction to some horrible new way to feel pain, but it doesn't.

I swallow. My heart thumps in my throat.

There's an awkward moment. Like he's fumbling, all confusion, and I know he isn't but I still smile because it's what he does when he's trying to get me to cry on his shoulder over my dead sisters.

I KILLED THEM, AND YOU THINK THIS IS CUTE?

No, not really. Alright, maybe a little. What? You're the one who shoved your fingers into my chest.

I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU  _ HURT. _

So? You hurt me all the time anyway.

That seems to stump him. There's a withdrawal, a sense of his feet lifting from the cavities of my skull. I thumb the scars left behind gently, then open my eyes to glance around me.

Ellen's got a bloody nose and teary eyes, but nobody's hurt. They never hear him unless he cracks open a glass bottle and lets the shards tell them what he wants them to do, or if he's laughing. Or screaming, that too, I guess. Everybody's still waiting, waiting for him to speak. Waiting for whatever will happen to  _ happen _ .

TED.

I start, turning back out to the empty expanse. Massive things move unseen in the black, haunting me; I shove the feeling down as best as I can. Clench my fists, and focus. Focus on that little brilliant spot in my skull: it's a small bulb of blinding white light, cool in my mouth. I swallow it down greedily, feel it crush my insides into a bloody pulp.

What?

DON'T DO THAT AGAIN.

I smile. No, no, that's not possible, AM. Didn't you like it?

He hesitates. A computer, built for death - and he hesitates.

I wonder, AM, if you did.

He flees. All at once: there's a shrieking of metal, a sudden battering of wind in the ears - and then he's gone.

Beside me, Gorrister grabs at me with wide, blown apart eyes, panting.

"Ted.  _ What did you do. _ "

I shrug, and grin stupidly when Ellen doesn't even try to stop him from throwing me down. My head collides, hard, with the rocks below; blood oozes out, unnaturally slow. Staring up at them, I just keep that little light in my mouth. It wiggles, struggling – but I know it'll stop, eventually.

After all, I stopped. AM doesn't say anything, but he knows he's caught. Caught tight in my mouth: and just like he'll never let us go, us inside his deepest bowels, I'll never let this go.

Above me, their figures become distorted shadows. I keep bleeding onto the stone floor, grinning.

  
  
  



End file.
